Exactly a year after the desecration of a bust of Dalit leader Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar and the subsequent firing which claimed 11 lives, the guilty are yet to be identified, let alone punished. Eleven Dalit residents of the colony died when the State Reserve Police opened fire to quell an agitating mob, an event witnessed by hundreds of people.

The incident gave rise to two vital issues: first, unravelling the mystery behind the desecration and pinpointing the culprits and second, fixing responsibility for the unprovoked firing and acting against the guilty police officials. However, on the first anniversary of the incident today, the investigation remains exactly where it was a year ago.

But that is not surprising.The saffron coalition at the helm of affairs has never shown an inclination towards delivering justice to this section of the population. In fact, all it has done is divert attention from real issues, blaming the Dalits themselves for the tragedy and eventually isolating them from the mainstream.

Consider the facts. Soon after the firing, the state administration fielded the infamous `tanker theory', followed by a video-cassette which supports the police version of the story - that the firing was imperative to prevent an entire colony from being torched by a rampaging mob. Though the truth is yet to be divined by the judiciary, the Dalits and even the National Human Rights Commission refuse to buy this theory. The truth is, the tanker theory and video-cassette were red herrings meant to shield the perpetrators.

On August 6 last year, men, women and children of Ramabai Nagar spontaneously came out of their homes and demanded the arrest of the police officials responsible for the shooting. It was a uniqueprotest and effective enough to pressurise the state to suspend Manohar Kadam, the sub-inspector who ordered the firing. However, three months later, Kadam was reinstated even though the Gundewar commission's inquiry into the incident is yet to present its findings.

This was certainly not the first time that a statue had been desecrated. During and after the renaming era the perverted acts of defacing statues have been happening almost regularly. Incidents such as this took place during the Congress regime as well. But there is a fundamental difference in the state's political strategy in dealing with such incidents.

For instance, the Congress government invariably pinned the crime on a neurotic, vagabond. The Shiv Sena-BJP government has instead used the desecration to politically smother emerging local leaders of the Dalit community by blaming local level politics and leadership for the Ramabai Nagar tragedy. The conspiracy is very clear: isolate the Dalits from their young leaders.

This was evidentduring the Budget Session of the Legislative Assembly, when the ruling coalition dug out the Parekh Commission report which had investigated 1989 riots at Kurla and Chembur and tabled it when the Opposition demanded that the Srikrishna Commission report on the 1992-93 communal holocaust in the city be tabled. The Parekh Commission report had also blamed Republican Party of India (RPI) leaders for the riots, which took place almost a decade ago.

The Ramabai Nagar tragedy marked a milestone in the Dalit political movement, giving secular politics a new direction. It penetrated the government's mockery and exposed its anti-Dalit visage to devastating effect. It fuelled an unprecedented political consolidation which threw electoral defeat in the face of the SS-BJP combine during the February 1998 Parliamentary elections. It was also the first time the Dalit people replied to social and political insults with an appropriate electoral reaction.

The results of the election indicated that the Dalits were rootingfor political consolidation among the RPI, Samajwadi Party and the Congress. If such political alignment had taken place in a few more states, it could have stemmed the advance of communal forces at the Centre as well. Yet, there is sufficient reason for introspection among the Dalit leadership. In April 1998, a young Dalit activist immolated himself to protest against the state government's inaction in punishing the desecrator of a statue of Ambedkar at Nagpur. Such extreme reactions from the Dalit community need to be analysed in the context of the direction they want to give the movement itself.

They must ask themselves whether mass hysteria as a method of protest can help their cause or provoke further isolation. The Ambedkarite movement at this stage needs a comprehensive and broad-based political view and has to take definite steps towards a casteless and classless democratic society.

(Avinash Mahatekar is a writer and Republican Party of India activist)